ANALYSING THE IMPORTANCE OF CREATING A DISTINCTIVE REHEARSAL PROCESS AND INNOVATIVE FINAL PERFORMANCE IN RELATION TO THE DIRECTOR’S VISION FOR THE PLAY By Sarah Lucy Walker A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MPhil Directing and Dramaturgy College of Arts and Law School of English, Drama, American and Canadian Studies University of Birmingham September 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis explores the relationship that a theatre director has with a play text. This is examined through looking at rehearsal techniques of established directors Peter Brook and Katie Mitchell, and analysing four professional productions; A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Peter Brook (1970) and Peter Hall (2010), Romeo and Juliet directed by Rupert Goold (2010) and Juliet and Her Romeo directed by Tom Morris (2010.) Through analysing these Shakespearean productions in relation to the comments from critics on how well each director’s interpretation was received, I will show why the director’s vision is important when re-inventing classical texts. In relation to Brook and Mitchell, this study will show how their individual methods were incorporated into my own rehearsal room environment to create two unique interpretations of the same scenes from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The overall findings of this practical and written study will show how a distinctive rehearsal process, combined with a new vision or adaptation for the text will create an innovative performance of even the oldest of works. Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….Page 1 Chapter One: Peter Brook A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970)……………………………..Page 4 Peter Hall A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2010)…………………………….....Page 7 Rupert Goold’s Romeo and Juliet (2010)…………………………………..….Page 10 Tom Morris’ Juliet and Her Romeo (2010)……………………………………Page 15 Chapter Two: Peter Brook…………………………………………………………………….Page 21 Katie Mitchell………………………………………………………………….Page 28 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….….Page 35 Appendicies List of Works Cited Bibliography List of Definitions or Abbreviations The Dream or Dream is an abbreviation of William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream In Chapter One, references in brackets that do not include a page number have been obtained from an online source. Full URLs are stated in the list of works cited. INTRODUCTION Ever since Aeschylus supervised the presentation of his tragedies at the Athenian festivals of the fifth century BC, it is safe to assume that someone has had overall responsibility for the rehearsal of any play that has reached the stage (Braun, 1982 p.7). As Braun states, there have always been individuals responsible for putting on a performance, but the official role of the theatre director only ‘appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century’ (Pavis and Shantz, 1998 p.104). This study looks at the work of the director and examines how each process, by every director on any performance piece, will be carried out in a different way. As Martin Esslin states: Each play script can be interpreted by a director in an infinite number of ways. Using the play script as a touchstone, the director creates a hypothetical production in her mind that is made concrete by the work of the theatre artists through the mise-en-scene (Esslin, as cited in Whitmore, 1994 p.15). The key aim in my research is to look at how each production of selected play texts is individual and unique due to the artistic vision of the director. In order to show this, I began researching well known play texts and decided to focus both my practical and written thesis projects on texts by William Shakespeare. With my research, I wanted to look at two of the texts that I find allow the director to be creative in terms of their directorial vision, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet. The popularity of these texts enabled me to Page 1 find and access numerous adaptations and interpretations to use as examples of innovative ways to portray the text. The productions I will be discussing are Peter Brook’s 1970 and Peter Hall’s 2010 productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Rupert Goold’s and Tom Morris’ 2010 productions of Romeo and Juliet. The reason behind choosing these particular productions was because of the individuality of each director’s vision and how they use the text to make their performance original. These four productions were more innovative compared to others that came out from the research, such as John Caird’s (1989) and Gregory Doran’s (2005 and 2008) productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Michael Boyd’s (2000) and Nancy Meckler’s (2006) productions of Romeo and Juliet (RSC, 2008). In Chapter One I will discuss the critical reception of these performances in relation to how each director’s vision complemented the text and how they were created through a distinctive rehearsal process. I will discuss these texts with reference to the following statement by W.B.Worthen (1997 p.72;): ‘how much of a piece can he (the director) make of that vision which he sees staring back at him when he gazes into the ruffled pool of Shakespeare’s play?’ Chapter 2 will focus on a more in-depth analysis of the relationship between directors, the text and the way in which it is worked on during each director’s own individual rehearsal process. In this section I will be analysing the incorporation of the practices of two directors into my rehearsal process in order to create two distinctive performances of the same text. I chose to study the directing practices of Peter Brook and Katie Mitchell; my reasons for choosing these two directors were because they have very determined opinions on the way in which a text Page 2 should be approached, interpreted and reflected on the stage. A large number of Brook’s rehearsals (particularly when referring to Shakespearean texts) focus on training his actors to deliver the dialogue in a specific way – the effect which Brook believes the playwright wanted to achieve. On the other hand, Katie Mitchell’s directing style relies on substantial research and in-depth knowledge of both the play and playwright. Her approach is individual because of the importance placed on historical accuracy to ensure her actors are fully aware of their characters’ histories and motivations for each scene, of the specific location of each scene, and most importantly, that any questions they have about the text as a whole are answered in the rehearsal process to ensure an accurate portrayal of the character. In this essay, I will demonstrate the importance of the role of the director in the world of theatre, and the substantial impact that they have due to their unique visions. Through analysing four professional performances and their directors, and using my own practical performance project as a key example, I will show how, if an audience member were to watch a different production of the same play, the experience would be different each time due to the specific directorial interpretations that have arisen through distinctive rehearsal processes. Page 3 CHAPTER ONE A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Peter Brook Once in a very rare while, a theatrical production arrives that is going to be talked about as long as there is a theatre, a production that, for good or ill, is going to exert a major influence on the contemporary stage (Barnes, 1970, cited in Halio, 2003). For Clive Barnes, Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was one of those productions. Produced for the RSC in 1970, Brook’s Dream was full of originality and vibrancy due to the innovative staging brought out of Brook’s directorial concepts. His main aim was ‘to reclaim it as an adult’s play of celebration, but also of fright and darkness, desire and dream and magical powers which really were powerful’ (Kustow, 2005, p.187). Brook’s Dream was set in a large white box, ‘ladders lead up the walls and on the top are scaffolds and rostrums from which actors can look down on the playing area like spectators at a bullfight.’(Barnes, 1970) ‘The forest trees were coiled wires which fairies dropped from above, encircling the lovers, entangling them as they struggled on their way’(Croyden, 2003 p.59). This white box worked as a setting for Brook’s piece as it allowed him to communicate his vision to the audience, and as Sally Jacobs, the designer for the production explained: The white space provided both intimacy and distance; in addition it invited the audience to join in the fun. Or, as Brook said, the set became “a white opening” into which the audience's imagination could pour. (Jacobs, cited in Halio, 2003 p.58). Each aesthetic element that was incorporated into the production was used to communicate Brook’s aim of redefining the celebratory messages to ensure that ‘magic was the key to the Page 4 production’ (Halio, 2003 p.51). Brook’s way of portraying this was to have the fairy characters as ‘acrobats and jugglers. They swing in on trapezes; they amaze us with juggling tricks and Tarzan-like swings across the stage’ (Barnes, 1970).